The Google Assistant gets more visual

Google today is launching a major visual redesign of its Assistant experience on phones. While the original vision of the Assistant focused mostly on voice, half of all interactions with the Assistant actually include touch. So with this redesign, Google acknowledges that and brings more and larger visuals to the Assistant experience.

If you’ve used one of the recent crop of Assistant-enabled smart displays, then some of what’s new here may look familiar. You now get controls and sliders to manage your smart home devices, for example. Those include sliders to dim your lights and buttons to turn them on or off. There also are controls for managing the volume of your speakers.Even in cases where the Assistant already offered visual feedback — say when you ask for the weather — the team has now also redesigned those results and brought them more in line with what users are already seeing on smart displays from the likes of Lenovo and LG. On the phone, though, that experience still feels a bit more pared down than on those larger displays.

With this redesign, which is going live on both Android and in the iOS app today, Google is also bringing a little bit more of the much-missed Google Now experience back to the phone. While you could already bring up a list of upcoming appointments, commute info, recent orders and other information about your day from the Assistant, that feature was hidden behind a rather odd icon that many users surely ignored. Now, after you’ve long-pressed the home button on your Android phone, you can swipe up to get that same experience. I’m not sure that’s more discoverable than previously, but Google is saving you a tap.

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In addition to the visual redesign of the Assistant, Google also today announced a number of new features for developers. Unsurprisingly, one part of this announcement focuses on allowing developers to build their own visual Assistant experiences. Google calls these “rich responses” and provides developers with a set of pre-made visual components that they can easily use to extend their Assistant actions. And because nothing is complete with GIFs, they can now use GIFs in their Assistant apps, too.

But in addition to these new options for creating more visual experiences, Google is also making it a bit easier for developers to take their users money.

While they could already sell physical goods through their Assistant actions, starting today, they’ll also be able to sell digital goods. Those can be one-time purchases for a new level in a game or recurring subscriptions. Headspace, which has long offered a very basic Assistant experience, now lets you sign up for subscriptions right from the Assistant on your phone, for example.

Selling digital goods directly in the Assistant is one thing, but that sale has to sync across different applications, too, so Google today is also launching a new sign-in service for the Assistant that allows developers to log in and link their accounts.

“In the past, account linking could be a frustrating experience for your users; having to manually type a username and password — or worse, create a new account — breaks the natural conversational flow,” the company explains. “With Google Sign-In, users can now create a new account with just a tap or confirmation through their voice. Most users can even link to their existing accounts with your service using their verified email address.”

Starbucks has already integrated this feature into its Assistant experience to give users access to their rewards account. Adding the new Sign-In for the Assistant has almost doubled its conversion rate.

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Apple’s Tim Cook is sending a privacy bat-signal to US lawmakers

Apple’s CEO Tim Cook has today been announced as the keynote speaker at a European data protection conference taking place in Brussels later this month — at a time when US lawmakers are asking tech giants outright if they’ll support “EU-like” privacy rules to shield US consumers from platform power.

For a week this month Europe’s data protection commissioners will gather to discuss the bloc’s shiny new privacy framework, GDPR, and what comes after it. They will also gather to listen to Cook talking on the theme of data ethics.

It’s a topic the Apple CEO has been speaking out about publicly for years.

Just this week, in an interview on US television, he couched privacy as “one of the most important issues of the 21st century” — describing it as a human right, and saying he supported “some level” of regulation, even as he professed himself “not a pro-regulation kind of person”.

Privacy is too important to keep being screwed with — or screwed over — was his clear subtext.

In a few weeks’ time Cook will literally stand alongside the architects of Europe’s GDPR, talking up privacy and ethics at the center of a Union whose founding charter grants its citizens data protection as a fundamental right.

The signalling is clear.

Europe is drawing fresh battle lines around the ethics of big data

While Apple might so far have fallen just shy of calling for a full copypaste of GDPR-level data protections into US law, there’s perhaps an element of strategic caution at play that’s moderating its plain-text political messaging.

Because the company’s actions from all other angles show Apple consistently defending privacy rights in a big data ethics fight that’s pitting Europe against a small number of powerful US adtech giants whose ‘best’ argument in defence of the unethical stuff they’re doing is they need to ‘keep up with China’ — a country that neither respects human rights nor privacy…

Zuckerberg urges privacy carve outs to compete with China

These same self-interested adtech giants are now, of course, hard at work lobbying US lawmakers that big data is a tenet of tech faith — when it really doesn’t have to be that way.

Privacy-respecting data-based innovations are both possible and available. The father of the World Wide Web thinks so — and is now doing a startup to make it so. And Apple’s business is an incredible testament to the power of putting people in control of technology, not vice-versa.

Apple is also a testament to how handsome a profit can be turned from privacy.

At a recent Senate hearing to discuss how the US should approach setting a federal privacy law, its VP of software technology, Bud Tribble, summed up the company’s position as: “We want your device to know everything about you but we don’t think we should.”

It’s notable that no other tech giants can make that claim. Not Amazon, not Facebook, not Google.

These platforms fall awkwardly silent when faced with questions about data ethics.

Nor can they comfortably stand on a public podium and discuss what does and does not produce “a result that’s great for society”, as Cook can. They have to invent their own ludicrous measures — like ‘relevant ads’.

Frankly speaking, if that’s your price for giving up on human rights you really are selling out.

So it’s left to Apple to send out the privacy bat-signal.

Let’s just hope the lawmakers are watching. Because the lobbyists are busy whispering.

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Google’s cyber unit Jigsaw introduces Intra, a new security app dedicated to busting censorship

Jigsaw, the division owned by Google parent Alphabet, has revealed Intra, a new app aimed at protecting users from state-sponsored censorship.

Intra is a new app that aims to prevent DNS manipulation attacks. Whenever you visit a website, the easy-to-remember web address is converted to a less-than-memorable IP address — often over an unsecured connection. That makes it easy for oppressive governments — like Turkey, which has used this technique before — to intercept web addresses requests and either kill them in their tracks to stop sites from loading, or redirect to a fake site.

By passing all your browsing queries and app traffic through an encrypted connection to a trusted Domain Name Server, Intra says it ensures you can use your app without meddling or get to the right site without interference.

“Intra is dead simple to use. Just download the app and turn it on,” Jigsaw said. “That’s it.”

Jigsaw has already seen some successes in parts of the world where internet access is restricted or monitored. The government in Venezuela reportedly used DNS manipulation to prevent citizens from accessing news sites and social networks.

The app uses Google’s own trusted DNS server by default, but users can also funnel their browsing requests through Cloudflare, which also hosts its own publicly accessible secure DNS server, or any other secure DNS server.

Admittedly, that requires a bit of trust for Google and Cloudflare — or any third party. A Jigsaw spokesperson told TechCrunch that Intra’s use of Google’s DNS is covered by its privacy policy, and Cloudflare also has its own.

Jigsaw said it will bake the app into Android Pie, which already allows already allows encrypted DNS connections. But Jigsaw is also making the app available for users in parts of the world with weaker economies that make upgrading from older devices near-impossible so they can benefit from the security features.

It’s the latest piece in the security and privacy puzzle that Jigsaw is trying to solve.

The little-known Alphabet division is focused on preventing censorship, threats of online harassment and countering violent extremism. The incubator focuses on empowering free speech and expression by providing tools and services that make online safer for higher-risk targets.

Jigsaw has also invested its time on several other anti-censorship apps, including Project Shield, which protects sites against distributed denial-of-service attacks, as well as Outline, which gives reporters and activists a virtual private network that funnels data through a secure channel.

Google’s Think Tank Changes Its Name To Jigsaw And Becomes A Tech Incubator

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Anti-spam service Truecaller is now a messaging app too

Truecaller, the app that helps screen spam calls and messages, is becoming a chat app as it continues to develop into a social service.

The company announced today that it is introducing a chat feature to its Android and iOS apps, although it is already live for Android beta users.

The move follows Truecaller’s recent foray into payments. That’s a localized push in India — Truecaller’s largest market based on users — based on the acquisition of startup Chillr in June. Beyond adding person-to-person payments through that deal, Truecaller is preparing to allow third-parties to integrate their services into its app. In that context, adding chat makes a lot of sense.

The feature could actually be quite handy for Android users. A Truecaller representative explained to TechCrunch that it will work much like Apple’s iMessage — messages sent between Truecaller users will be handled in the app for free, while messages sent to non-users will go over as SMS, which is supported by the app.

Truecaller also said its move to add messaging will help combat “fake news,” an issue that has plagued WhatsApp in India. The company said it’ll rely on its community to vet and report links, with plans to add AI and machine learning to the process.

While it is doubtless correct that Truecaller has a strong community — the information used to identify spam SMS and phone numbers inside the app comes from community reporting — but the proposed solution isn’t really any different to what Facebook and WhatsApp have talked up. Truecaller won’t have dedicated fact-checkers either. It’s strategy may work within smaller circles, but if the app gains a lot of traction it remains to be seen how it’ll manage the false information problem.

The messaging feature is global, but it promises to make the biggest impact in India, where it highlights how a number of different companies are converging on messaging and payments from very different starting points.

WhatsApp, which claims 200 million users in India, is moving from chat to payments; payment specialist Paytm added chat earlier last year and it just enabled SMS; while Truecaller came from spam detection into payments and now chat.

While it is smaller than WhatsApp and Paytm, Truecaller still boasts an impressive 100 million daily users. The company has said before that 60 percent of its registered users are in India, although it isn’t clear how many of those are active. With chat, Truecaller will hope to grow that number further still before it opens its platform to third parties. That could happen before the end of this year, or in early next year, the company told TechCrunch.

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Google launches voice assistant app to help people with limited mobility use their phones

Google just introduced a new Android app to better enable people with limited mobility to use their phones. Called Voice Access, the app offers people a hands-free way to use apps, write and edit text and, of course, talk to the Google Assistant.

It’s designed to make it easier to control specific functions like clicking a button, and scrolling and navigating app screens. Currently, the app is only available in English, but Google is working on additional languages.

Google created the app in service of people with Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis, arthritis and spinal cord injuries, but recognizes that the tool can also be helpful for people whose hands are tied with other tasks.

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The Windows 10 October 2018 Update is now available

Microsoft today announced that the Windows 10 October 2018 update is now available. The company made the announcement at a small press event in New York, though it’s obviously no surprise that Microsoft decided to roll out the October update in the month that gave it its name.

As usual, these rollouts take a while. You can force the update now, but for those who want to wait, Microsoft will start the automatic updates on October 9.

Like most recent Windows updates, the October release isn’t going to blow you away with a new interface or crazy new features. Most of these updates now are incremental, but overall, the new release offers a number of interesting new features.

The most interesting of these is probably the new “Your Phone” app, which allows you to text from your PC using an Android phone that also runs Microsoft’s mobile companion app. In later iterations, that app will also sync notifications to your desktop, but for now, that’s not an option. There also are tools for continuing your workflow as you switch from your phone to PC (or vice versa). These features work for iOS users, too.

As far as syncing between devices goes, it’s worth noting that the update also will allow you to share your clipboard between PCs.

Since everybody likes a dark mode these days, the Windows 10 File Explorer now also includes a dark theme. There’s also a revamped search experience, as well as a new screenshot tool.

While the release includes plenty of other tweaks, both in terms of functionality and design, the most anticipated feature, Sets, didn’t make it into this release. Sets is probably the biggest change to the overall Windows user experience since the release of Windows 10, so maybe it’s no surprise that Microsoft is trying to perfect this. And perfection takes a while.

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iOS 12.1 will come with new emojis

Apple is about to release the public beta version of iOS 12.1. And before everybody freaks out, the company announced that this update will feature new emojis — best feature update ever.

In other words, Apple is releasing its own take on Unicode 11.0 emojis. Other devices and major services will soon all support the same emojis, but with a different design.

Apple already previewed some of these new emoji designs back in July for World Emoji Day. So here’s what you should expect.

Curly hair, grey hair, bald people, red hair…

As always, you’ll be able to find five skin colors in addition to yellow, and all characters come in male and female variants. The Unicode 11.0 specs said that vendors should add "curly hair" emojis. But it looks like Apple concluded "alright let's put a ’stache on that face!"

As for everything else, you’ll find a new emojis for outdoor accessories, such as luggage, compass and hiking shoes. On the food front, you’ll find bagels, salt, cupcakes, leafy greens, mango, moon cake, etc.

And when it comes to animals, there’s finally a mosquito emoji as well as new llama, swan, raccoon, kangaroo, lobster, parrot and peacock emojis.

Every time I’ve written about emojis, the number one comment has always been about red hair. It took a few years but red hair people, the Unicode consortium has finally heard you!

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